A How To Guide for living the Fun Life after Retirement

Tag Archives: ski

As previously mentioned, my husband and I became volunteer managers of an HO Scale train room, at our area’s Senior Recreation Center last year.

This room had been a four year work in progress by another train lover, so we are dealing with what was already built. What we jokingly called our seven foot chocolate cake/blob, is the cover for a (circular track) helix that’s designed to bring the trains to the upper or lower level of tracks.

To reflect how we would have wanted our town to look in the 1950’s, we added a Ski Lodge and Skiers on the mountain.

When people cleaned out their dusty, spider infested boxes, they donated the HO scale model items to the train room,

Luckily for me, all the spiders were dead and one of the great finds was this saloon.

We kit-bashed it into a ski chalet and painted winter clothes on the patrons.

Kit-bashing sounds destructive, but it is really a gentle method of creating what you need to fit a theme.

A fence was cut, shaped and painted to become ski racks.

Coal dust was used for the blacktopped road and the rock retaining wall was molded from plaster.

More trees were added and hot glued into place to finally stand up straight.

Our research on adding snow to the mountain was entertaining. One suggestion was to add crystal sugar for the sparkle. How cute would it be, to have ants snacking on our sugar mountain?

We haven’t been historically true to how our town looked in the 1950’s. We’ve captured some interesting sites of Utah and compressed them into scenes of what we hope everyone will enjoy seeing in our train room .

Like this:

I’m finally old enough to get a discounted Ski Lift Ticket. Women usually don’t tell their age, but I’ve earned these bragging rights. I’m 70 years old and saved $25 on my ski pass. Yeah, baby!

Not too long ago if you were still skiing at age 70, resorts would give you a free lift ticket.

According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), the percentage of baby boomers ages 55 to 64 on the slopes has more than doubled in the past 10 years, with the number of skiers 65 and older rising as well.

Ski areas want them to return with their grandkids and are enticing them by charging the same price as a young adult ticket. Other ski areas call you a senior if you’re between 65 and 69, but if you’re 70 or older, they call you a “super senior,” which entitles you to a bigger discount.

With the millions of baby boomers still skiing or snowboarding, how long will these discounts last? According to the NSAA, some ski areas are already eliminating the senior ski pass or moving the senior discount age to 80 years old.

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Welcome! I have lived through 50+ happy years of marriage with my best friend, 4 well-adjusted adult children, which now include 8 beautiful grandchildren, and 3 spoiled grand-dogs. I’m now retired and committed to adding to my bucket list....not kicking it.
Although I dreaded and delayed my retirement, I quickly realized it's not all that bad. I decided it was time to gather tips and ideas on how to navigate through what I have found confusing about life after retirement. Also, I’ll be sharing how I am stepping out of my comfort zone to enjoy life to the fullest.
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